Press Release

12.06.2015

ARAG is the Largest Sponsor of the New Sport Safety Foundation “Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport”

Together with such highly respected partners as the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), ARAG is seeking to enhance sport accident research and accident prevention in Germany. To this end, the foundation Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport has been founded by the DOSB as the sport umbrella organization in Germany, ARAG Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG and other institutions. ARAG Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG is the largest sponsor of the new foundation.

Germans suffer over two million sport injuries per year. Sustained, well-founded prevention can help to minimize the frequency and severity of these accidents. This is the mission of the foundation Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport, whose supervisory board held its constituting meeting in Düsseldorf on 1 June 2015. The seven current foundation members are seeking to bundle their interests and activities so as to research the causes and consequences of sport accidents, injuries and harm and develop and implement effective preventative concepts in a range of projects. This effort will also involve the participation of partners from the academic and political spheres. The projects of the new foundation will demonstrate a high practical relevance, so that the actions developed here are immediately accessible to athletes and sport organizations.

Besides ARAG Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG and the German Olympic Sports Confederation, benefactors include the North Rhine-Westphalian state sport associations Landessportbund Nordrhein-Westfalen e. V. and Sporthilfe NRW e. V., the Ruhr University Bochum and the companies TÜV SÜD Management Service GmbH and Erwin Himmelseher Assekuranz-Vermittlung GmbH & Co. KG.

ARAG has been maintaining an extensive sport accident research knowledge base since 1987, when AGAG and the Ruhr University Bochum established the ASiS Sport Safety Working Group to research injuries in club sport. The resulting database is the largest of its kind in Europe, comprises over 200,000 injuries and serves as a basis for developing sport accident prevention concepts.

ASiS became the nucleus for Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport, the only higher-level institution that is concerned solely with researching and preventing sport accidents, injuries and harm in all areas of society.

Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport sees itself as a partner of sport and would like to work together with the sport establishment to help ensure that as many people as possible can remain physically active their whole life long. The approaches for improved prevention of sport accidents include practical athletic measures such as special training forms or exercises, as well as technical and political measures, which include such aspects as rules and referee behavior. Sports facilities and protective gear are also a focus of prevention, as is the monitoring of athletes by physicians and other experts. The aim is to make sport accident prevention an integral part of regular training and thus elevate it to standard practice. In order to achieve this, trainers, coaches and physical education teachers should not only understand what injuries can occur but also learn how these can be prevented.

“Just registering and evaluating accidents is too little for us as active founders. We want to use the foundation to set new accents in prevention,” explains Christian Vogée, member of the board of ARAG Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG. “ Ideally, the development of sustainable prevention concepts and their concrete implementation in athletic practice will reduce the risk of injury. This will enable young athletes in particular to engage in sport throughout their entire lives. We want to contribute to making active leisure sport safer and more attractive,” he adds.

The first supervisory meeting of Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport was held at the start of June 2015 at the headquarters of the Düsseldorf-based family enterprise represented by Christian Vogée, who is currently member of the board of ARAG Allgemeine Versicherungs-AG.

The non-profit foundation Stiftung Sicherheit im Sport, based in Bochum, will seek to win over further foundation members for its mission to create improved conditions for safe sport activities in Germany jointly with its partners. More information on the foundation is available at www.sicherheitimsport.de

ARAG insures over 20 million leisure and competitive athletes in Germany, who enjoy coverage through a total of 15 state sport associations and federations, making it Europe’s largest sport insurer.